LO STUDIO BOGGERI 1933 - 1973
COMUNICAZIONE VISUALE E GRAFICA APPLICATA
Paolo Fossati and Roberto Sambonet [Designers]
Herbert Bayer [Introduction]
Herbert Bayer [Introduction], Paolo Fossati, Roberto Sambonet [Designers]: LO STUDIO BOGGERI 1933 - 1973 [COMUNICAZIONE VISUALE E GRAFICA APPLICATA]. Milan: Atre Grafiche Amilcare Pizzi, 1974. First edition. Text in Italian. Small quarto. Thick printed perfect-bound and sewn wrappers. 126 pp. Color and black and white reproductions. Trace of wear to textblock edges. A nearly fine copy. Rare.
7.5 x 4.75 softcover book with 126 pages well illustrated with color and black and white reproductions from the [then] 40-year history of Milan's Studio Boggeri. The first anthology of work of this legendary Studio -- my highest recommendation.
In 1933, a new direction in Italian Avant-Garde design were trumpeted by the opening of the Studio Boggeri in Milan in the heart of the industrial north. Former violinist Antonio Boggeri opened his self-named studio to spread the avant-garde stylings of The Ring of New Advertising Artists to the Italian peninsula. This being Italy, things quickly got complicated, with strict Bauhaus dogma yielding to Milan's playful karma. Boggeri's all-star roster started with Bauhaus-trained Xanti Schawinsky and quickly grew to include Marcello Nizzoli, Erberto Carboni, Irme Reiner and Kathe Bernhardt.
Boggeri and his colleagues paid tribute to the homegrown aesthetic of Marinetti's Futurism, but were firmly forward-looking with their embrace of contemporary trends such as PhotoMontage, Collage and the ideology of the New Typography, while -- in the spirit of inclusiveness -- mixing in every other "Ism" of the 1930s Avant-Garde. The exuberance of early Boggeri output got Mussolini's attention, and Il Duce followed the aesthetic leads of Hitler and Stalin by clamping down on the artistic diversity radiating out of Milan.
Studio Boggeri survived the was and quickly came to the the forefront of the postwar Italian design Renaissance, trading the Avant-Garde stylings of the prewar years for the cool calculations of the Swiss through the fifties al the way into the eighties, all the while maintaining their essential spirit of levity.
Includes work by Walter Ballmer, Kathe Bernhardt, Antonio Boggier, Ezio Bonnie, Ado Calabresi, Erberto Carboni, Deberny & Peignot, Fortunato Depero, Roby D'Silva, Franco Grignani, Honegger-Lavater, Max Huber, Enzo Mari, Rene Martinelli, Armando Milani, Bruno Monguzzi, Remo Muratore, Marcello Nizzoli, Bob Noorda, Hazy Osterwalder, Irme Reiner, Ricas-Munari, Roberto Sambonet, Leone Sbrana, Xanti Schawinsky, Max Schneider, Albe Steiner, and Carlo Vivarelli.